The Reviews are in, Twelfth Night and Hem a huge hit! "This exceptionally musical production has beautiful folky-Elizabethan-Irish-Scottish-doo-wop songs by a group called Hem. Someone, please, ask Hem to write a show." - Newsday "Music, as you may have gathered, is far from incidental to the production. The handsome score is written and performed by the “symphonic folk-rock” band Hem. In addition to the songs — most expertly led by the gifted comic actor David Pittu as a sour ragamuffin Feste — there is music to add color, wit, life to almost every scene, played on a mixture of strings, percussion and woodwinds, the sound evoking a distant era without straining for period authenticity." - NY Times " "The musical interludes, in fact, are among the high points of the show, with the score composed by the indie folk-rock group Hem filled with hauntingly memorable songs."- Hollywood Reporter ""Add in the soul-stirring music of neo-folk ensemble Hem and you have one magical night in Illyria." - Variety Lyics by Shakespeare, Music by Hem Hem is joining forces with The Public Theater this summer compose the score for their production of Twelfth Night! "Shakespeare in the Park" is one of NYC's most celebrated annual offerings, and we're extremely honored to be in on the project. The production is directed by Daniel Sullivan and stars Anne Hathaway and Audra McDonald, along with a host of other actors and musicians who have all been wonderful to work with. Our own Tall Steve is even in the company, picking a guitar and wearing stripey pants. The play runs Tuesday through Sunday, June 10-July 12, at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Tickets are free but must be reserved in advance. For information visit www.publictheater.org. Recording Dispatch We're back in the studio this month to work on Departure and Farewell, hoping to complete the project by early summer (though the studio tends to distort timelines and deadlines with a real strength of will). We're thrilled about the album, and hope to have it out and in your hands by late 2009, with several samplings of things to come long before that. Musings about Better Days... Mary Chapin Carpenter wrote a really kind piece about our song "Better Days" in today's Washington Times. You can read it here. She nicely puts into words thoughts that many of us have had this fall, and we're grateful to read them... Hem on HBO this Sunday Tune in this Sunday (10/12) @ 9:00 pm as our song We'​ll Meet Along​ the Way will be featu​red on the HBO show True Blood​... What We Did On Our Summer Vacation This summer we were in the studio working on release to come out early in 2009... We also teamed up with Liberty Mutual on an ad that they ran for the Beijing Olympics - it features a new song called 'Better Days' and you can see it here. As for the rest of the summer: cookouts, wine, coney island, music, air conditioned multiplexes. On these five we all heartily agree, but that may about cover it.